July 17, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



71 



work accordingly. The size of the city, 

 the general interest in educational affairs, 

 the trend which local interests give to the 

 public-school curriculum, all tend to make 

 it possible to accomplish in one community, 

 or in one section of the country, what 

 would be quite impossible in another. We 

 must accept our students with such prepa- 

 ration as our normal constituency can give, 

 stimulated, to be sure, and to a certain 

 extent guided by the higher institution of 

 learning, and build our technical courses 

 upon that preparation as best we may. 



More general dissatisfaction is expressed 

 with reference to the preparation of our 

 students in algebra than in any other sub- 

 ject. This comes from both eastern and 

 western institutions as well as from those 

 of the Mississippi Valley. At the Uni- 

 versity of Illinois last year forty per cent, 

 of the freshman class failed to pass a quiz 

 covering the main points of elementary 

 algebra and that after a two weeks' re- 

 view of the subject, and twenty-three per 

 cent, of the class failed on a second exami- 

 nation some weeks later. Of the one hun- 

 dred and ninety students who failed on 

 the first test, seventy-four per cent, entered . 

 the university without conditions from 

 schools where the work had been examined 

 and approved by the high-school visitor. 

 The poor results which we get in algebra 

 are not due, in my estimation, exclusively 

 to poor instruction in the subject or to the 

 lack of attention in the high school. It 

 is the one subject in mathematics which is 

 begun in the high school and completed 

 in the college course. Often the high- 

 school algebra is completed in the sopho- 

 more year and then not taken up again 

 until the student enters upon his technical 

 course. All know how difficult it is to 

 retain the details of any course of study 

 during an interval of several years 

 in which the subject has been but little 

 used. That this lapse of time between the 



completion of the high-school work and 

 the beginning of the college work is an 

 important element in the ease is shown by 

 the fact that of the one hundred and 

 ninety failures mentioned over fifty per 

 cent, had not had algebra for at least four 

 years, and only ten per cent, had studied 

 the subject the year before. 



A substantial gain would be made if we 

 should urge upon the high schools the 

 desirability of putting the last half year 

 devoted to algebra in the senior year of 

 the high-school curriculum and include 

 in that work the more difficult parts of 

 the subject as well as a general review 

 of the parts presented earlier. This 

 arrangement has become quite common in 

 Illinois, and the best argument that can be 

 presented in favor of such an arrangement 

 is that of the one hundred and ninety eases 

 of failure cited over sixty-three per cent, 

 had completed the work in the sophomore 

 year and less than eight per cent, had had 

 any work in algebra in the senior year. 

 Similar records have been kept at Illinois 

 for the past seven or eight years and the 

 data given are typical of the other years. 



Unfortunately, we can have no assur- 

 ance that when a student has once mastered 

 a subject, he will forever afterwards retain 

 it. Neither can we hope that algebra will 

 ever be anything other than the weakest 

 place in the preparation of our students 

 so long as the present division of the sub- 

 ject so largely prevails. It is a situation 

 which we must accept, and the only thing 

 we can do is to make such recommenda- 

 tions as will tend to reduce the number of 

 fatalities as the boy passes from his sec- 

 ondary school to his technical course. The 

 technical school must expect to commence 

 its course in college algebra by a brief 

 review of the important points covered in 

 the high school, by taking a back-stitch, so 

 to speak, into the work already done. 

 Most of the western schools admit by cer- 



